by Renata Reid
Malama MacNeil provided these details on how connections have been built between the Subud center and the local community.
Getting to Know the Community
The Chico Subud group in Butte County rents their hall to Pastor Vince for Sunday morning church services. Pastor Vince also leads the “Love Chapmantown Coalition” which supports community building in an unincorporated area of the city.
Subud Chico made their hall available to the community group for family activities, services to the homeless, African dance classes, and a social group for young adults with developmental delays.This community presence in the hall led them to Helping Hands, an organization run by local Mormons, who came and painted the Subud Hall. Since the hall was painted, there has been no tagging, which was a regular problem before.
Hosting the Little Free Library
When Pastor Vince was approached by the The Little Free Library because of his work in Chapmantown, the Subud group embraced the idea. The library has a steward who monitors and replenishes the books, and also takes books into nursing homes. No money is allocated from the library system so the structure itself and all of the books are donated by the community. Most of the books are in English with some books in Spanish.
A newspaper article was inspired by Library’s outreach effort to encourage literacy by putting books in public spaces. The Subud hall is the second Little Free Library in the area, and more are in progress.
The library is now perceived as part of the neighborhood. It has drawn attention to the Subud Hall and the activities that happen there. It’s an excellent community builder and serves many purposes. Malama is eager to spread the concept to other Subud groups in California. She envisions it could be set up at almost any of our halls, anywhere there’s foot traffic.
Interested? For more information go to: www.littlefreelibrary.com .